Employees' Communication Patterns in Unorganized Idea-sharing Activities

Abstract

Idea management is frequently observed as the front end of innovation process. Before idea management is implemented in an organization, it may be significant to research what are intuitive and spontaneous patterns of behavior expressed by the potential idea sharers. This research focuses on spontaneous idea sharing behaviors of employees in Serbian industrial companies, focusing on those behaviors that were not systematically and proactively organized by their companies. The goal of this research was to explore the frequency of idea sharing behaviors of employees and the idea-sharing and communication patterns that they express, the type of verbal stimulus relevant to their idea communication activities, and feedback stimuli that ideators experience. Findings suggest that there is significant creative potential that is not used, explaining the suboptimal usage of employees creative input with bad practices by the management.